


Blizzard

by jericho



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 06:50:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jericho/pseuds/jericho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance can't decide which of his friends he wants to miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blizzard

**Author's Note:**

> From 2000

Deep down, Lance must have known something huge was going to happen to him. Every footstep on the carpet was vivid, every smear on the otherwise white hallway walls of the hotel popping out at him. They were stuck in Toronto, there was a blizzard outside and the show had been canceled. Even through the thick walls of the hotel, Lance thought he could hear the storm. 

He got to Joey's room and slid the key card into the slot, and the movement was smooth and clean. The second the door opened, Lance knew what was going on. There was a huddle under the blankets, Joey's head poking out the top. Under Joey was a girl. The same girl Joey had sworn off. The same girl Joey had promised never to go back to. The room reeked of sweat and fresh orgasms, and Lance caught the tail end of the grunting noises that trailed off when he stepped into the room. 

It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Like someone had speared him hard in the gut with the end of a two-by-four. He doubled over a little, backing into the wall and resting there, feeling tears pricking at his eyelids. 

"Joey...." 

Joey rolled off quickly and sat up, wrapping the sheet around his waist and exposing the girl's naked upper half in the process. "Lance, I..." 

Lance grabbed blindly at the doorknob, twisting in one quick motion. By the time he was out in the hallway, tears were streaming down his face. 

Lance was about halfway to his room, trying to race the sobs, when JC stuck his head in the hall. "Lance?" 

"Nothing," Lance mumbled, keeping his head down, fumbling with his key card and disappearing into his room before JC could see how upset he was. 

He spent the rest of the afternoon on his bed, staring at the TV, listening to what seemed like an endless stream of commercials. 

"Everybody in khakis!" 

"No money down, no interest for one full year." 

"Have you been injured in an auto accident?" 

He should have known better than to think he could keep someone like Joey all to himself. He should have been happy just getting to spend the night with him occasionally, maintaining the casual sex routine they'd had going for...what, four years? It was Joey who had taken it a step farther. 

Lance slumped down more, staring at the screen like it was a magnetic force. He couldn't look away. Couldn't look around the hotel room. Couldn't face reality right now. 

"Campino: discover the taste you'll never forget." 

It was Joey who had suddenly promised to Lance one day that he wanted, you know, a relationship. Except Joey didn't use the word "relationship." He used the word "thing." The word "relationship" didn't enter into the vocabularies of people like Joey. People like Joey had too much other stuff going on in their lives. They were too busy to actually commit themselves. Only losers like Lance used words like "relationship." 

"Hon! The colors this season are so great. How do they do it?" 

"Great styles. Great savings. Zellers." 

When had he gone from being a fuck buddy to completely swooning? When had the subtle excitement in his stomach when he was going to see Joey turned into full-on pain? He thought maybe Joey might show up at his door, trying to explain things away. But Joey didn't. Only people like Lance would run after someone who was crying. People like Joey had too many people waiting in line for their attention to bother with just one. 

"Come see the softer side of Sears." 

Lance finally tore his eyes away from the screen and let his gaze rest on the mirror across the room. He saw the image of a guy, looking a little older and a little skinnier than Lance had remembered him. Before long, his stare was unblinking, and he wondered how long it had been since he'd looked in the mirror and saw an image he'd actually liked. The TV hummed in the background, still trying to sell the keys to happiness and a balanced, well-adjusted life. 

"Everybody in jeans!" 

Lance heard a timid knock on his door. His eyeballs slid in their sockets until his gaze rested on the doorknob, but otherwise he didn't react. 

"Lance?" It was JC's voice, distant and high and oh-so-effeminate. Lance wondered sometimes if JC actually realized how gay he sounded. Lance had been practicing for years to _not_ sound like that. And JC walked around with it like he didn't give a shit. Lance guessed those were the advantages to having an on-again, off-again relationship with a Playboy model and not fucking one of your male group mates. He wondered if maybe he should find a beard for himself. 

"What?" Lance called, looking back at his reflection. 

"Are you okay? Like, can I come in?" 

Lance sighed at the mirror, and the sigh hurt. It hurt to think. Hurt to get up. Hurt to move. He swung his leg over the bed, letting his foot rest on the floor, and wondered how he was going to manage the rest of it. The emotional pain almost seemed to manifest itself into a physical one, until it hurt to stand and hurt to take a breath. 

He made it to the door and opened it, turning immediately and walking back to sit on the bed. He didn't want to give JC the chance to hug him, or say something nice to him. The tears just might start again and Lance was already tired of crying. 

_Everybody in sympathetic faces_ , Lance thought wryly. 

He slumped back on his mound of pillows and looked up at JC, watching JC point to the door and back again like he was trying to figure out what to say. 

"I was just...I saw the..." JC tried and faltered, dropping his arm to his side. Lance stared at the beginnings of a goatee on JC's chin. It looked awkward and out of place on JC's face - something grown up and masculine on an otherwise youthful-looking canvas, like a baby smoking a cigar. Although it wasn't quite as bad as Justin's attempts at goatees and soul patches, trying to catapult himself into looking older. 

JC wavered a little, smiling awkwardly, searching for the right words. Lance knew he could help out JC a little, maybe toss him the start of a conversation. But he didn't. 

JC finally gave Lance a full-on smile, but it died as soon as it appeared. "Look, want to get drunk tonight? You look like you could use it." 

That wasn't what Lance had expected him to say. He was actually a little impressed. "Okay." 

"Cool." JC nodded, turned, walked back to the door and left Lance alone again. 

_Everybody in solitude._

*** 

Lance remembered seeing Shannen Doherty, circa her Beverly Hills 90210 days, host Saturday Night Live. One of the segments featured Shannen talking to her junkie brother. "Fool me once, shame on you," Shannen had said, delivering her lines with the usual clipped, annoying voice. "Fool me twice, shame on me." 

The whole skit was so unfunny that it was excruciating, but Lance remembered the line. It was the first time he'd ever actually heard that phrase, which was a little weird. Southerners were huge on snappy little life-lesson phrases that could be easily stitched onto decorative pillows - "One bad apple spoils the bunch," or "Blood is thicker than water," or "If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas." Quick one liners, passed on through generations and used by people who wanted to spread their wisdom but didn't actually have anything to say. 

Lance never figured his entire life would come down to that phrase. But it did. 

He bumped into Joey in the hallway, on the way to the Coke machine. Joey was getting ice. He stopped, looked at Lance, said "Lance, let me..." Lance flipped his hand in the air in a little diva-like gesture of dismissal, and Joey tried again. "Lance, I still want to..." 

Lance walked into the room where the Coke machine was and let the door swing shut, ready to run over and hold it closed if he had to. Anything to prevent a face-to-face meeting with Joey. The truth was that if he talked to Joey face to face, he'd probably cry. And he'd already cried in front of Joey way too many times. 

He couldn't bring himself to be surprised when he heard that they were staying in the hotel for another night because of the blizzard. Despite moving from hotel to hotel for months at a time, staying in one for two nights in a row when they weren't supposed to was unsettling. Like they should have moved on from that scenery by now. They shouldn't be stopping. Lance remembered an X-Files episode where some guy was infected from government radiation waves, and if he didn't continuously move west, his head would explode. He felt a little like that. They had stopped, and the pressure was building. 

Lance locked himself in his room, dropping two cans of Coke in the ice bucket and fishing a little bottle of whisky from the mini bar. He wasn't sure if there was enough alcohol in the mini bar to drown his sorrows, but he was pretty sure that if he went down to the hotel bar and flashed them some bills, they'd sell him a bottle. There was a shortage of a lot of things in his life, like love and acceptance and self esteem, but alcohol was never one of them. 

_Everybody in rehab!_

When JC showed up, Lance had already downed two drinks and kind of forgotten JC was even coming. He let JC in and flopped back down on the bed, letting JC stroll over to the desk where Lance had assembled a small bar. 

JC made himself a drink, except his was a lot weaker than Lance's and used a lot more Coke. He sauntered over and sat next to Lance, curling into a cross-legged position. 

"Are you okay?" JC asked. 

"Yeah. Well...yeah." 

JC nodded into his drink, looking down, circling the top of the cup with his thumb. "So you're crazy about him, huh?" 

Lance choked back a laugh, grimacing at his own drink, and felt tears again. He couldn't believe he was crying this much, especially when he vowed not to. He couldn't remember ever crying this often in his life. 

He let JC's fingers sift through his hair. He couldn't decide if he loved being touched or hated it, so he just let it happen. JC's fingers kneaded his shoulder, squeezed his knee, and finally Lance decided that the contact was all too brief. 

"I'm sorry," Lance said, wiping at his eyes with the collar of his shirt. "I don't know why I'm like this. It's screwed. I knew it was casual. I guess now I just feel kind of...alone." 

"It's okay," JC said. "Like, we've all felt like this. It's not anything to be ashamed of, I don't think." 

Lance looked up at JC, pondering what a weird and interesting guy JC really was. He had bright blue eyes, and they were always a curious mixture of being vacant and intelligent at the same time, like Albert Einstein on strong weed. JC's face seemed to have a limited number of expressions - giddy laughter, narrow-eyed pseudo-sexuality, blank slate - but at least every expression, particularly the vacant one, was honest. 

"Want me to make you feel better?" JC asked, his eyebrows darting up when he spoke. 

Lance sighed. "I don't know how you can do that." 

"I can think of a couple of ways." 

It was such an obviously flirty remark that Lance thought for a second that he'd misinterpreted it. But then JC set his drink on the night table, and took Lance's out of his hand and set it there too. And only JC would initiate sex with someone so obviously upset about someone else. Someone so obviously on the rebound. So obviously in pain. It was like either JC knew that and didn't care, or cared and thought he was helping, or just didn't know that. And with JC, it was impossible to determine which one it was. All Lance knew was that JC's lips and tongue and hands had the talent to give him a killer orgasm, and that if it progressed, JC would let Lance fuck him. With Joey, Lance was always the bottom, as if letting Lance fuck him would make him fully gay. But even though Lance had never actually been with JC, he just knew. He knew JC would give it up to him, and Lance would have an exquisite half hour to feel masculine and in control. 

*** 

The first thing Lance saw when he woke up was JC's neck in extreme close-up. Then it came flooding back - the used condom tossed in the toilet bowl, the scratches that now littered his back, the sounds of moaning and groaning in that gay JC voice that Lance had come to know and love. 

Lance crawled out of bed, finding his clothes and slipping into them. He could shower on the bus. He just wanted to get the fuck out of this hotel. 

JC rolled over and sighed at the ceiling, covering his eyes with the back of his hand. "Hey." 

"Hey," Lance replied. 

"Are you hung over?" 

Lance turned his pant legs right side out and considered it. "No." 

"I am. And how." 

Lance smirked. He was sliding into his pants when he heard a knock at the door. He answered it automatically this time, knowing it wouldn't be Joey. 

He opened to door to find Joey standing in the hallway in his "NOYFB" T-shirt. Joey opened his mouth to speak and pushed his way in enough to see JC, who was still curled in bed like he was trying to gather the energy to get up. 

"You're busy," Joey said quickly. His eyes were wild and he was fidgeting. Lance could tell that Joey had rehearsed this scene, except something had popped up in the script that he hadn't expected. 

"Yeah," Lance said evenly. 

"I wanted to talk to you. We really need to talk." 

Lance heard JC behind him, scrambling into his clothes. JC let out a weak "Hey, man," and it was a pathetic attempt. 

"I can come back," Joey offered. There was no hint of anger in his voice. At least not yet. 

"Okay." 

Lance waited until Joey had headed back down the hall to shut the door. JC was fully dressed by then. "See you on the bus," JC said. "If we can leave, that is." 

Lance turned and studied JC, whose hair was a combination of spiky and flat from bed head. He couldn't help but smile. He loved the way JC looked, and the way JC was handling this. 

JC stepped closer to the door, ready to leave, and Lance stopped him. He rested his hand on the back of JC's neck, pulling him close and planting a deep kiss on his lips. "Thanks," Lance murmured. 

He felt JC's lips curve into a smile. "You're welcome." 

JC pulled away and winked. Winking wasn't a natural JC move, and it looked corny, but in a sweet way. "We can do this again sometime," JC suggested. 

"As soon as possible," Lance said. 

He got a smile in response, and it was a nice smile. No pretense. No hidden meanings. No hurt feelings. Just a smile. 

*** 

So Joey explained. He felt the need to deal with Kelly since she had driven hours through the snow storm to see him. They'd had a bit too much to drink and ended up in bed. Lance always got a kick out of people describing things that way, as if two people could simply trip and fall in bed. He knew the truth, which was that Joey couldn't deal with just sleeping with a guy, or just sleeping with one person in general. Joey was all about variety. He looked at sex as recreation. It was something fun to do to pass the time, like playing Madden 2000 on the PlayStation. Lance could see the truth buried deep in Joey's eyes, and the truth hurt. 

And there it was, another classic cliche that could be stitched onto a pillow. "The truth hurts." 

A month later he and JC were still sleeping together. Sex with Joey had always been hot and intense, to the point where thinking about it was enough to make Lance break a sweat. When he was with Joey, he felt like he was in the middle of a porn movie, or that any second he should get up and write a letter to an adult magazine detailing the experience so other people could jerk off to it. 

Sex with JC, on the other hand, was fun. That was the only word Lance could think of to describe it. JC would bite Lance's nipples until Lance laughed and shrieked and told him to stop. JC would think up new positions, and soon they'd be twisting and turning and winding their bodies into pretzel shapes, giggling the whole time. Lance couldn't remember the last time he'd giggled, but he knew it was probably with Joey. 

It was enough to make Lance think that maybe Joey hadn't been that big of a deal after all. Maybe Joey's warm, deep kisses were something he'd talked himself into loving because he was lonely on the road. Maybe Joey whispering in his ear and stroking his hair was something he could get over if he only had enough diversions. Maybe he hadn't been in love with Joey. Maybe it had just been a crush. A heavy and intense and heart-crunching crush, but a crush nonetheless. So when he saw Joey glance over at him, he told himself that it wasn't love in Joey's eyes. It was curiosity, maybe. Or friendship. A shared past. A shared experience. But not love. 

_Everybody in denial!_

*** 

They were playing in Tampa, and finally back to warm weather. Still in a post-show high, Lance stood in front of the mirror in his hotel bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, studying his reflection. He didn't look half bad for once. He liked his hair lately. And ever since joining *NSYNC, his body had been getting progressively thinner and bulkier in the right places. His mother used to tell him that people either were ugly when they were young and got progressively better with age, or they were beautiful when they were young and spent the rest of their lives knowing that the best was behind them. Lance figured he was one of the former, and he was glad. He liked the idea of getting better instead of worse. 

He flicked off the light and padded naked across the dark room, climbing into bed and settling next to the lump under the covers. He and JC exchanged key cards on a regular basis now, for whenever they wanted to fool around. Which was often. 

Lance rolled so his back was to the lump and snuggled into the pillow, smiling a little. There was no better feeling than crawling into clean sheets after a warm shower. It was even better when it was accompanied by a warm hand moving across his hip. 

He felt the hand move higher, across his side, but it provided enough pressure that it didn't tickle. Lance opened his eyes slowly and inhaled, getting a whiff of dark, sweet cologne and the unmistakable scent of.... 

"Joey?" Lance rolled onto his back, knowing his eyes were the shape of flying saucers. 

Joey propped himself up on his elbow and rested his hand on Lance's chest like he wanted to keep him in place. "This is the only way I can get you alone long enough to listen to me." 

Lance wanted to struggle. Tried to move away. But something was holding him in place, and it wasn't Joey's hand. It was something mental. He'd almost forgotten how much he loved Joey's touch, and the indescribable smell he recognized as the scent of his lover, and how much he loved Joey's warm smile and grinning eyes and low chuckle. It hurt all over again. 

"I'm sorry, baby," Joey said. That was prime Joey-speak. Baby. Honey. Sweetness. And especially the word "sorry." 

"What do you want, Joey?" Lance asked. He hoped Joey would catch his meaning and know that Lance meant in general, not just tonight. 

Joey did. "I don't know," he answered. "I mean, I gotta be honest with you. I don't know." 

"Then why did you say that you wanted a 'thing?' Why did you say you wanted to be monogamous if you didn't?" 

Joey paused, and Lance could see the silhouette of Joey scratching his head against the backlight of the window. "I don't know. I guess I knew that JC liked you and I didn't want you to end up with him." 

Lance's brow furrowed. "JC liked me? Really?" He couldn't help but feel a little proud and amazed by the idea of that. 

"Yeah. And I thought you wanted a thing." 

"Joey, I didn't want a thing if that wasn't what you wanted." 

Joey sighed, his hand running warmly across Lance's chest and resting on his stomach, above the sheet. "I'm sorry. I just...miss hanging out with you, you know?" 

Lance gulped back what he thought might be the beginning of tears. "I know. Me too." 

He closed his eyes and let Joey kiss him. Joey's sweet-tasting lips, Joey's strong hands gripping him, Joey's wet pink tongue melting against his. Lance thought it was probably the best feeling ever. 

The kiss was brought to a screeching halt when Lance heard the click of the doorknob. Light sliced through the room from the hallway and then diminished again as the door swung shut. 

JC stood still for a few seconds, looking across the room, even in the darkness obviously able to see what was going down. He crossed the room slowly, stopping in a patch of blue light coming through the curtains, looking down calmly and focusing on Joey. 

"I want him," JC said, like Lance wasn't even in the room, and Lance got the feeling that this wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. 

"So do I," Joey said. 

"Yeah, but you don't deserve him." 

Joey's chest jerked with a quick, harsh laugh. "Why?" 

"Because you have a girlfriend." 

Another quick jerk of forced laughter. "So do you." 

"Yeah, but at least I'm up front about it." 

Lance slid out from under Joey's hand, struggling into a sitting position. The whole situation seemed a little surreal - going from having no one to having two guys that he loved in his room, arguing over who got to sleep with him. 

_Everybody in heat!_

Lance knew he should say something. It was up to him to remedy this situation. But in truth, he was kind of liking it a little. He couldn't remember anyone ever fighting for him, let alone two people at once. And there was no indication that it was going to get heated. 

Then JC ruined it. "Why don't we let Lance decide who he wants to sleep with?" 

Lance expected Joey to protest that one, but he didn't. Lance sighed and ran his hand through his hair, blinking a little in the darkness, truly and absolutely unsure how to answer that. 

"I don't know," he said. "I like you both. I mean, seriously. I don't know how to answer that." 

JC paused, and Lance could tell he was wavering a little. Then he turned on his heel and shrugged. "Whatever," he said, although Lance could hear a tinge of hurt in his voice. 

JC crossed the room and left before Lance had a chance to say anything else. He flopped back into a laying position, blinking at the black room, and felt Joey's hand return to his chest. 

"Okay," Lance said, patting Joey's hand before taking it and resting it between them. "You can sleep here. But we're just going to sleep. Okay?" 

"Okay," Joey said. 

Lance figured if Joey's attention span was reliable enough that he could sleep in Lance's room all night without having an orgasm, he might consider giving him a second chance. He woke up the next morning staring at the back of Joey's neck in extreme close-up, Joey sleeping soundly next to him. 

*** 

For a week, neither Joey nor JC asked for Lance's key card, and no one came to visit him. Lance was back to making drinks from his bar fridge, mixing too much whisky with not enough Coke, hating what he saw in the mirror and listening to commercials. 

"Manulife Direct: Your family. Your future. Your choice." 

And there was nothing more to say, really, other than that he'd lost both of his friends. Not just one guy he loved, but two. It was different from when he'd just lost Joey, because the Joey loss had been a shock, like at a kid's carnival in Orlando when he'd been dropped into a barrel of freezing water in the celebrity dunk tank. Losing both of them caused kind of a mute ache that settled in the back of his mind, ever present in his body without fully taking over. He couldn't decide if he'd brought this on himself or not. 

He noticed, for the first time, what stupid TV shows there were on cable stations. "I Married a Strange Person!" "Famous Dead People." And there were public service announcements: "Smoke-free air. Support no smoking in restaurants." 

And there were stupid talk show topics. "You dissed me, and now I want my stuff back!" "Wild teens who dress too sexy." He figured his life could be a good talk show, at least for half an hour, anyway. 

"Frito Lays: betcha can't eat just one." 

He drank until he couldn't find where he'd put the remote control. Then he drank some more. 

*** 

The porn at the hotel in Atlanta was all typical straight boy porn - guys giving facial come shots, girls wildly over-emoting while giving blow jobs. Lance had never actually seen a piece of straight porn where he thought the girl might have gotten off. With guys, there was never any question. 

Lance turned off the movie about 10 minutes into it, even though it cost $15 to order it up, and went in to take a shower. It was almost 1 a.m., and he knew he should be asleep, but he'd trained himself to run on five hours of sleep. It came with the territory when he was trying to shoot a movie and record an album at the same time. 

He returned to find his room dark and a lump in his bed. He stopped dead in his tracks, narrowing his eyes at the bed, wondering if it was Joey or JC or someone entirely different this time. Hell, if he tried hard enough, maybe he could fuck up another friendship. 

He inched toward the bed, hearing steady breathing, reaching out slowly to pull the sheet back. He was treated to a little smile from Joey, who was curled up in a ball. And behind him... 

Were there _two_ lumps in his bed? 

JC sat up and smiled a typical JC smile - bright and unassuming and about as straightforward as smiles got. "We've decided. If you don't mind sleeping with both of us, we don't mind sleeping with you." 

Lance was certain his jaw had dropped. "But..." 

"I know it sounds fucked," Joey said quickly, "but we're all casual here, right? And that way, if one's not in the mood, there's always a spare." He laughed a little at his own joke, but it came out uneven and nervous. 

"But..." 

"You don't have to say yes," JC said quickly. "It's just a suggestion. If it's stupid, let us know and we'll get out of your room." 

Lance wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or blush or run out of the room. Instead he stared at both of them, biting hard on his lip to hide his smile, thinking this was without a doubt the most surreal thing that had ever happened to him. 

_Everybody in awe!_

*** 

A few months later, they were back in Toronto, except this time there was no snow to hold them there. Lance lay in bed looking out the window, which was 20 floors up. He saw the quiet blink of an airplane slide across the sky, way off the distance. Occasionally he heard a siren zip off through the dark night, or a door shut in the hallway. Otherwise, everything was peaceful. 

He closed his eyes and smiled a little when he felt Joey against his back, Joey's arm sliding around his waist and pulling him closer. Lance melted against the warmth, purring a little as Joey's hand drifted down his stomach and ran lightly across his cock. 

"Is JC awake?" Lance asked as Joey planted a string of kisses across his neck. 

"I don't think so," Joey said. "We could wake him up." 

"Mmm. Okay." 

Joey hooked his arm around Lance's waist and tugged, flipping Lance over him until Lance landed in the middle of the bed. "Oof," Lance said, and they laughed a little. 

The impact was enough to make JC open his eyes. Joey reached across Lance and ran his fingers through JC's hair, and JC purred the same as Lance had a few seconds earlier. 

Then JC's lips were fastened around Lance's nipple, Joey's hips thrusting gently against Lance from behind, the three of them wrapped in a snuggle of warm blankets. And Lance thought he actually wouldn't mind being stuck in a blizzard this time.   



End file.
